


The Seventh Generation

by Medie



Category: Alien vs Predator (2004), Prometheus (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death Fix, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:30:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goddamn, but this is one job he wishes he'd never taken. Every single time he turns around people are dying and there's a new monster rearing its ugly head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seventh Generation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deborah_judge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deborah_judge/gifts).



> my thanks to my beta - 

He'd know that ceiling anywhere.

Last time he saw it, he was staring up at Vickers' face, watching the rise and fall of her body, and nothing else mattered but to see that look on her face. He got a glimpse behind those walls of hers at the woman she keeps locked up tight and she was the prettiest thing he's ever seen. 

He's back in Vickers pod, though how the hell that's even possible is beyond him. 

Especially since the place is a goddamn disaster zone. He pushes himself up onto his elbows and gets a better look. 

"You know, maybe we should crash the thing again," he says, taking it in. "Might improve things a little." 

Somebody's been cleaning, repairing, but something bad went down here. Which, after everything he's seen these past few days, says a whole hell of a lot. 

Fuck his life. 

"Good," Vickers says, walking into view. "You're still alive."

"Don't know how the hell that's possible."

She smiles. It's just bitter enough to be real. "My father's choice in medical equipment. Nothing but the best." 

"Yeah, but I'm _alive_. How the hell am I not a flaming heap on a hillside somewhere?" Last thing he remembers is flying into that ship and everything exploding around him. 

"Luck?" Vickers brings him water. Not much, but with the damage he's seeing, no way the pod's capable of generating its own water right now. It's got to be rationed. "God? How the hell should I know? You almost killed me bringing down that ship."

He sips the water, letting it slide down his throat. It's the best damn thing he's ever tasted and he grabs for her hand, finishing the whole thing in one go. 

She rolls her eyes, but her fingers are gentle as they wipe water from his chin. 

"Awful sorry about that," he says, drawling out the words to watch her smile. "Aim better next time."

"Yes," Meredith agrees. "You will."

*

He's right about the pod being a wreck, but he doesn't quite believe the story of how it got to be that way.

"You took a flamethrower to a _what_?"

Meredith looks up from where she's working. There are panels open all around her and she seems comfortable with everything. He's starting to think there isn't a single part of this ship she isn't intimately familiar with.

He's not even going to pretend that's not hotter than hell, because goddamn, she's gorgeous with grease on her face.

"I'm not sure there's a name for them," Meredith says, frowning at the tool in her hand. "I've never found one before." 

"Before?" He struggles upright. The healing burns on his body protest the movement, but he ignores them and sits on the edge of the bed. "What the hell are talking about? You sound like you've seen one of those things before."

"I haven't, but my great-grandfather apparently did." Meredith closes the panel before her and lights wink on around them. "There's a lot to the story you don't know." 

"No shit," Janek says, and slumps back onto the bed. Goddamn he misses not being tired. "How about you try telling me sometime?"

*

When he wakes up again, Meredith is apparently taking a break from repairing the pod in favor of repairing him. His skin itches where she's been running the regen unit over it. He grumbles, swatting at her, and she responds by flicking the unburned part of his forehead. 

"Stop that," she says, "I'm working."

"You're fussing," he grumbles, good-natured though it is. "Knock that shit off." 

"No."

He opens his eyes and finds her sitting on the bed beside him with a medkit on her lap. Her hair is loose, there's that smudge of grease on her cheek, and even wearing sweat-stained clothes, she's the still the prettiest thing he ever did see. "Okay."

She almost smiles, but he can see resolve in her eyes.

"For starters, my father was a fool." Meredith's voice is hard, cold, but Janek thinks he can hear something else underneath. Something that makes him hurt, his heart clenching on words a little girl never heard, and he thinks back on things while she composes herself. "Before you hear anything else, understand that seems to be a hereditary trait." 

He's not sure what he felt when Weyland died. Too much in his head to worry about a crazy old man. 

Lying in a ruined lifepod, being tended to by his daughter, Janek's pretty sure the bastard got what was coming to him. Course, that just might be the drugs talking, but he doubts it.

"I got the feeling it might have finally skipped a generation," he says, tongue too thick in his mouth. 

She puts away the regen unit, but her eyes don't quite meet his when she starts talking again. "This isn't the first expedition of this sort my family has conducted. Back on Earth, a hundred years ago, there was one to the Antarctic. It was led by my great-grandfather. He was sick, terminally so, and wanted to make his mark." Her voice has regained its cool composure, but there's just enough derision in it to tell him his girl's still in there and she's pretty damn pissed off. 

"Why do I get the feeling this particular little trip didn't go so well?"

"Because it didn't." Meredith really does smile when she says, "We did marginally better. We had three to their one." 

"Well, that's something I suppose." Lacing his fingers together, he relaxes. "So how about you tell me just what this survivor had to say for himself?"

"Herself, actually. Her name was Alexa Woods and she was the expedition's guide. They found her in an old settlement from a previous expedition where she'd barricaded herself into the ruins. When they brought her home, she refused to speak to anyone from the Weyland Corporation for nearly a year." Meredith sighs. "When she did, the story she told was fantastical. She described a pyramid beneath the ice filled with beings she termed extraterrestrials."

"Aliens. Why do these things always come back to aliens?"

She looks at him. He wouldn't swear to it, but he thinks that look on her face is affectionate. "We're stranded in a lifepod on another world and I killed one of those things with a _flamethrower_. I think we can safely say this isn't a bad scifi."

"You would say that," he says, grinning. "You're the badass heroine who saved the asshole pilot with a flamethrower."

Meredith rolls her eyes. "She described the aliens as lizard-like. They didn't seem to be sentient, but they were definitely hostile. They attacked and killed most of the expedition."

"Most?"

"Hmm, yes, the others killed the rest. The first species seemed to be prey for another race that showed up shortly after the expedition entered the pyramid." Meredith picks up a data tablet and holds it up so he can get a look at the information on it. Biologicals. 

He gets a good look and feels his eyebrows rise. " _Acid blood_?" He thinks back to Fifield's helmet and cringes. "Looks like your little alien friends might be distant cousins of the ones we encountered."

"Or offshoots of the same strain of virus," Meredith says. "It wouldn't be the first time someone took a naturally occurring contagion and bioengineered it into a weapon."

"Wouldn't be the first time they lost control of it either," he agrees. "Just keeps getting better and better. You think that, maybe, you might've wanted to mention some of this sooner? Like say _before_ we went into that ship?"

He thinks of Fifield and Millburn. God, _Millburn_. 

"Hindsight," Meredith shrugs. "We had only Ms. Wood's testimony to go on. The pyramid did not survive the expedition. With no physical evidence, there was nothing to link the two species. Not until people started dying." 

"Okay, even if I give you that one—and trust me, I'm not sure yet—what aren't you telling me? What's got that look in your eye?" Goddamn, but this is one job he wishes he'd never taken. Every single time he turns around people are dying and there's a new monster rearing its ugly head. 

Meredith sighs. "The aliens here have been dead two thousand years. The pyramid? Was millions of years older than that."

"Fuck," he says, sighing. "This is just going to keep on getting worse, isn't it?" 

She smiles, mirthless. "Probably." 

"No kidding." He looks at her. "You think there's anything of them left back home?"

"No. We made sure of it." 

"Well," he sighs. "That's something." 

They're probably going to die here, but at least no one back home's ever going to have to go through this again.

But that's probably what Alexa Woods thought.

He closes his eyes. "We need to get out of here."

Meredith lays a hand on his head. Her skin is warm and he relaxes beneath the touch. "We're going to." 

"Oh yeah?"

"I like to minimize risk." 

There's an air of familiarity in the words and he chuckles. "I think I like the sound of that." 

"You should," she says, leaning into him. "It's what saved your life."

*

"You said there were three survivors," he says, when he's up and on the move again. Repairs to the pod are a daily necessity, just to keep the damn thing from falling apart around them. Their alien buddies had themselves one hell of a smackdown on the thing. "Who's lucky number three and where the hell are they?"

"Shaw." Meredith holds out a hand and he slaps a tool into it. "She left with David on one of the other Engineer vessels. She's gone looking for them."

Janek laughs. "Of course she has. Think I pity the poor bastards if she ever finds them."

Meredith looks up at him. There's a gleam in her eye that makes him smile.

Goddamn, but he likes the look of blood lust in her eye. 

She rises up, stepping into the circle of his arms. "Pity them if we find them first."

*

It isn't quite three months before Meredith's contingency plan reaches them. The Demeter sets herself down before them, looking so much like his own vessel that his throat tightens in grief. 

Meredith shows nothing of the sort. She just grabs her bag and greets the new crew with cold eyes. "There's a body outside. Salvage it please." 

He looks at her. "You got a plan?"

She smiles back. "I always do." 

*

The company is Meredith's. No one dares argue. 

"You're going to war, aren't you?"

Meredith strips off her suit, sliding into bed with him. She lets him tangle their limbs together, lets him kiss her, and when they're breathless, he presses a kiss to her temple. 

"You think they're going to come here."

"Maybe, maybe not," Meredith runs her fingers along his neck. "I don't intend on waiting."

"Think I pity those aliens," he says, grinning into her skin. 

"You should." 

*

Goddamn, he loves that woman.


End file.
